Bronx Jurors Get Manslaughter Case Against Bus Driver in Crash That Killed 15

Ophadell Williams, right, the driver of a bus that crashed last year, killing 15 passengers, sat with his lawyer Patrick L. Bruno at the start of his trial in September.Credit
John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

After eight weeks of testimony, a Bronx jury began deliberating on Tuesday in the manslaughter case of the driver of a Chinatown bus that crashed last year on Interstate 95, killing 15 passengers and severely injuring many more.

The case centered on the question of whether the driver, Ophadell Williams, 41, was so dangerously fatigued when he got behind the wheel that he should be found criminally liable. The prosecution called 55 witnesses during the trial, while the defense called none, suggesting instead that the entire trial was an ill-conceived attempt to find a villain in a tragedy.

“Are you somehow reckless or negligent if you drive with less than the ideal seven or eight hours sleep?” Patrick L. Bruno, a lawyer for Mr. Williams, asked the jury in State Supreme Court in the Bronx during summations on Monday.

But Gary Weil, an assistant district attorney, told the jury that driving under extreme fatigue was equivalent to driving under the influence of alcohol. “He exhibited all the symptoms of sleep deprivation,” Mr. Weil said.

The World Wide Travel bus driven by Mr. Williams was headed south on I-95 from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut when it crashed around 5:40 a.m. on March 12, 2011, near the border between Westchester County and the Bronx.

The bus veered off the right side of the road and flipped on its side before its roof was nearly sliced off by a metal signpost. A man who lost both arms trying to shield himself was among 18 injured passengers and delivered some of the most harrowing testimony of the trial.

Though his lawyer maintained that Mr. Williams had been cut off by a tractor-trailer, prosecutors tried to dismantle the claim, also disputed by National Transportation Safety Board investigators, saying that at no time in the seconds before the crash did he apply his brakes or try to maneuver away from the guardrail.

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“He has to see that truck and take defensive action,” Mr. Weil said. “But there was no defensive action.”

After driving the bus up to the casino on the evening of March 11, Mr. Williams napped inside the vehicle while passengers gambled. Mr. Bruno said his client had rested enough to make the nearly three-hour drive back to New York. He also said that Mr. Williams, who investigators determined had been traveling at 78 miles per hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone moments before the crash, had done no great wrong by speeding, considering the time of day.

Several times during his closing statement, Mr. Bruno referred to Mr. Williams as “Al Capone” in a sarcastic attempt to highlight the minor nature of infractions like not keeping an up-to-date logbook and having once had outstanding tickets.

Mr. Weil brought up points made by a sleep expert who had been called on to testify who estimated that Mr. Williams slept an insufficient amount in the 72 hours before the crash. “The only sleep he ever got in those three days were two to three hours on the bus, laid out across the seats,” Mr. Weil said.

Florence Wong, whose father, Don Lee, 76, was killed in the crash and who has attended every day of the trial, said she hoped the jury would vote to convict.

“If you drive a bus you have a fiduciary duty to not drive drowsy,” she said. “He should have known himself.”

Several people identified by Mr. Bruno as relatives of Mr. Williams’s were in the courtroom, including an elderly woman, a young man and two young women who shared a bench one row behind Mr. Williams. All four appeared to fall asleep in the courtroom as Mr. Bruno made his summation. None would comment afterward.

A version of this article appears in print on November 28, 2012, on Page A29 of the New York edition with the headline: Bronx Jurors Get Manslaughter Case Against Bus Driver in Crash That Killed 15. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe